Here comes the rain again
by bhut
Summary: AU: As Nagato brought back Konoha's dead to life, so did he restore several of the dead Akatsuki...and the live Akatsuki are up to their own plots.


**Here comes the rain again**

_Disclaimer: Neither the characters nor the lyrics are mine._

_Here comes the rain again,_

_Falling on my head like a memory,_

_Falling on my head like a new emotion_

The skies were full of clouds, heavy with rain, powered by the rinnigan of Nagato, the former leader of the Akatsuki. And as their load was finally released, so did the torturous life of Nagato at last come to an end, while the lives of the deceased Konoha's citizens, both civilian and ninja, restart anew. But their lives weren't the only ones.

_I want to walk in the open wind,_

_I want to talk like lovers do_

Far, far away in a sandy and rocky wasteland, there was movement. Deep, deep within his impromptu grave, a heart of Kakuzu – one that was powered by the water chakra – began to beat anew as well. And as it beat, tendrils of flesh formed around and out of it, reaching to at least two of his other hearts, slowly but surely, forming a full body, until finally...

...Kakuzu, recovered by at least 75% of his strength, burst from the ground, looking even more sour than the usual. "Alive! I've recovered at last," he said, almost smugly, mostly to himself, but-

"That makes two of us, then," Kakuzu's much-hated (including by him) partner Hidan spoke from Kakuzu's right side, startling the other shinobi. "Glad to see that your many-heart strategy is good for something!"

Kakuzu twitched and gave Hidan an evil eye. "What?" the silver-haired scythe-wielding shinobi said innocently. "I'm immortal, remember? I would've come back anyways...something just sped up this process...a lot..."

"Fine," Kakuzu shook his head in disgust, and then listened-in to his inner processes. "Not up to full power yet... to be expected..." he exhaled. "Well, I'm off to the Cloud for the next little while, and then to check-up on our glorious leader and Konan."

"Sure, why not?" Hidan agreed with a smile. "I could spread Janshin-sama's word there as well as anywhere else!"

"I didn't invite you," Kakuzu said flatly.

"I don't care," Hidan's smile was openly mocking by now. "I'm tagging along all the same. How do you like them apples now?"

Kakuzu just listened-in to his inner processes again... and gave in – this time.

_Want to dive into your ocean,_

_Is it raining with you?_

In another part – this time a desert, rather than a wasteland – the Leader-caused rain was falling down too. As it fell, the sand beneath it turned into mud, which slowly rolled downwards, in a direction of a bottom of a crater. As it fell, the mud stuck, and formed first into a manikin-like, and then a human-like shape.

"Wha-? What has happened?" Deidara of the Akatsuki muttered sheepishly. He died when he exploded in an attempt to kill Uchiha Sasuke by transforming his body into explosive clay, and then, the chakra in the Leader-caused rain reacted with the chakra in his remains, once scattered through the explosion's crater, and now back once more in a Deidara-like shape.

Or, rather, in a Deidara, but a new and improved one – sort of. Though Nagato's powers had inadvertently brought him to life, Deidara now only looked like human, but on the inside (though he wasn't aware of that yet), the demolitions expert now had even less in common with a regular human than even Hidan or Kakuzu: he now was not flesh and blood, but his element – earth – and his elemental chakra, Deidara had achieved his own immortality, by becoming some sort of a living clay-thing.

...But Deidara at this moment was completely oblivious to this new development (and even if he knew this, it would've probably delighted rather than horrified him). Rather, he looked around thoughtfully (for him, at any rate), and muttered, crossly:

"So? What did I miss?"

_So baby,_

_Talk to me,_

_Like lovers do_

"So, this is how it goes," Kisame said, almost sadly, to his interlocutrix, once a Panther-Shen, now a missing-nin from the elemental country of Cloud. "Itachi's dead, blown by his own petard."

"And you're out of a partner," Hisakata said sagely. Kisame, though his sharpness came mainly from his sword, wasn't fooled.

"Well, yes," he admitted, "but... I came here mainly to take you back to the HQ. With Itachi gone... things are moving there I know not where, and I like it not, because it's neither cold nor not. Come on, Hi, it's not safe here anymore."

"Hm," both Kisame and Hisakata looked down at the woman's abdomen that was by now clearly showing her pregnant condition. "I _am_ the mother of your child," the woman admitted, faux-reluctantly.

"And the love of my life, and all those other things that Itachi helped me tell you," Kisame admitted, "so please, let's live. It's not safe out here anymore."

"Oh, very well, Kisame, you sweet-talker, you," Hisakata agreed with the same faux-reluctance. "Let's go."

_Walk with me,_

_Like lovers do_

It wasn't raining in the elemental country of Water, for a change, but since Uchiha Madara was sitting in a boat-casino that straddled Water's international border, it was quite damp here all the same.

"Gekko," he spoke right away to his interlocutrix, "Itachi's dead, so's Nagato, Sasuke has joined my party, and the stars in the sky say it is time. Are you ready?"

"Ah, Madara," Gekko, formerly princess of all the black kitsune, now (for the last six or seven centuries at least) Mrs. Uchiha Madara smiled a smile that would've scared an Inuzuka-ninja utterly and completely. "You sweet-talker, you. Big Red!" she called-out to her second-in-command. "Pack up your bags! We're leaving for the elemental country of Rain!"

"On it!" the red-haired giantess called back, and grinned at the long-ago married couple. "Guess your revenge is about to be complete."

"_Ooh, yea..."_And for the first time since he had subjugated the Kyuubi no Kitsune to his will, Madara smiled, and the smile promised nothing but pain and misery both to Konoha in particular, and to anyone who'll cross his plot in general.

End


End file.
